Hello, Ridgecrest Community,  

I’m so excited to welcome you to the 2019-20 school year.  This will be my third year at Ridgecrest and I’m particularly happy to usher this class of 8th graders, with whom I started two years ago, through their final year at Ridgecrest.   

I look forward to what this year brings as we continue to look for ways to make Ridgecrest a great place for our kids. We now have an activities director who will plan activities during lunch. Ms. Blosser spent the entire summer planning activities to keep lunch fun. Our WEB Leaders have once again done an amazing job of welcoming our incoming 6th graders and new students to Ridgecrest and they will plan activities throughout the year to ensure that their first year at Ridgecrest is a memorable one.  

In the classroom, our teachers will be focused on making connections with their students and creating a rich academic experience for every student. Our teachers will look for ways to support students both academically and with their behavior through Multi-Tiered Systems of Support. When a student struggles academically, various supports are implemented and increased depending on need. Through Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, our students are shown explicitly how we expect everyone to behave on campus. Students who demonstrate appropriate behaviors are rewarded with RIStix which can earn them fun prizes throughout the year. Our counselors play a significant role in supporting our students through Social-Emotional Learning Presentations, meeting with every student at least twice every year and most importantly, through continuous progress monitoring.   

Finally, we hope that our Ridgecrest Raiders use middle school as a time to learn how to be the best student that they can be.  We provide every student with a planner that we call the Compass, which should help them navigate their way through their time here. Likewise, our motto is Navigating Your Journey, as we believe that their time here is a journey that will lead them to their desired destination.  

We know every Raider’s journey will lead to a different destination, but we hope the journey itself will be a wonderful one here at Ridgecrest!!